


the rivers run into the sea

by tonyang (kurusui)



Category: Keyakizaka46 (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 18:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16959651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurusui/pseuds/tonyang
Summary: Yuuka invites Akane to lunch.





	the rivers run into the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pulses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulses/gifts).



> _but I meet you at the delta / where the rivers run into the sea._

Akane receives three types of texts from Yuuka. One is succinct, informational, but friendly. _We have a new meeting scheduled with management at 3 next week ^o^_ , Yuuka sent once. Later Akane would open her inbox to a long email detailing the location and agenda. It’s like she’s giving a heads up on something Akane doesn’t want to know.

Yuuka is just doing her job, but in a nice way. Akane never really knows how to respond to these. Sometimes she just doesn’t.

That’s what results in the second type. _Did you get my last message????_ This is the annoying brand. The useless, nagging texts. The “ _Don’t forget to set an alarm! :)”_ she got the week after she overslept for recording and stumbled into the studio with hair just a twinge out of place. (Akane doesn’t have the patience to sit the full period when the stylists curl her hair with a dryer.) And, and, the “ _Great job today!!!”_ she gets after her team wins tug-of-war on athletics day. Akane knows these things already.

 _Yes,_ Akane snaps back, except Yuuka will never know the force with which Akane pressed the buttons on her phone keyboard. And she’s probably happier for it. Yuuka is a little too sincere for her own good.

The third type is neither solicited nor unsolicited. It’s- Akane doesn’t know what it is.

 

 

(When Akane is asked this question in a magazine interview, she elects to blend it all together. “Uhh,” she starts. “Yuuka contacts me about lots of things. Sometimes it’s too much, she’s like a mother.” Akane laughs. “But I’m happy that she does talk to me.”

The lighting man shifts the spotlight, so that the camera catches the pearl eyeshadow on the rim of her eyes.

“So, do you talk to her?” the MC jokes. It is an unscripted joke that plays off her response. It’s definitely one, because he laughs goodnaturedly, and so do the few other staff members in the room.

Akane freezes for a second, and then remembers to smile. “Yes, of course I do. All the time.”)

 

 

The third type is like this. The third type is:

_> Akanen, do you want to have lunch tomorrow?_

And a follow-up reply, sent 3 minutes after:

_> 11:30AM? Your favorite shabu-shabu place? My treat._

Akane unplugs her phone from its charger and falls back onto her bed, holding it in her outstretched hand and turning it as if to get a better look at it. It doesn’t read any differently, just that the angle means the sunlight bounces a little more off her screen, and the glare makes it harder to read. Or something like that. Akane doesn’t remember anything about optics from science class.

“Is it my birthday or something?” Akane wonders out loud. The calendar on her wall has 1月 printed in big block letters at the top. “Did she steal some of my makeup?”

It’s Friday and they have a performance in the evening, which means rehearsals start in a few hours. Akane will see Yuuka at work and get some answers. But that’s for later. First, she crawls back into bed.

 

 —

 

Yuuka says it in person this time, so Akane doesn’t get to add a tally mark to her headcount of “Pointless Texts Sugai Yuuka has sent to Moriya Akane,” which is somewhere in the dozens now. It’s kind of unsatisfying.

“Did you get my text?” Yuuka sits down across the dressing room table from Akane, who is eating a packet of mixed nuts. She almost looks mad, uncharacteristically.

“Yeah,” Akane answers. She blinks a few times. “What exactly does-”

“Oh, ok.” The expression on Yuuka’s face drops to a smile. “I figured you wouldn’t answer me if I texted you that.”

Akane narrows her eyes. “But I always answer you if you ask a question. I only ignore you when you just say things-”

Yuuka crosses her arms. Behind her, Miyu wins the game she was playing with Nijika and she shouts loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. Akane sits there for a moment, distracted, until she realizes.

“Ah.” She covers her mouth. “You did ask a question. Well! I wanted to ask you why first.”

Yuuka sighs. “Unsurprisingly, I’m more annoyed that you have a rule for not responding to me.”

Akane searches Yuuka’s face for a sign that she’s not irrevocably frustrated with her - for being honest. Yuuka should have figured this one out by now, so that’s on her. The furrow in her eyebrows softens a little, but it still looks a little like disappointment.

“Sorry,” Akane says finally. “Sometimes I can’t think of anything to say. It’s not a real rule.” Her hair falls into her eyes when she tilts her head down towards the table. Now she can’t read Yuuka’s expression, she doesn’t have to, because she can’t see it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuuka says, standing up. The tone of her voice is sweet and calming again. And despite that it just changed for the better, the disparity is still kind of scary. Akane feels like she never wants to be that careless again. “Naako is waving from the doorway with some cans from the vending machine. Do you want some orange juice?”

Akane looks up again. “I’m okay. But wait - tomorrow, really?” Yuuka nods. “But why?”

She gets no answer because Nanako is mouthing something which Yuuka is trying to decipher. There are too many people in the vicinity and the table is on the opposite side of the room. She’s never really been good at reading lips, so Akane just wants to tell her to walk over there instead of struggling like a flopping fish. (But she’s not going to say that out loud. At least not today.)

“What...?” Yuuka says, straining her eyes. Nanako waves her hands in the air and gives up, exiting the room anyway.

“So?”

“I have no idea what she was saying.”

Akane grins. “I could tell. Why do you want to treat me to lunch all of a sudden?”

Yuuka pauses, and says, “Just because.”

This is the most useless thing Sugai Yuuka has said to her to date. Akane wants to protest, but before she can open her mouth, something inside her tells her to shut up. Like she doesn’t even want to know the answer. Yuuka is leaving her seat anyway. So Akane just sits.

Before she pushes her chair in, Yuuka tries to take from the bag of mixed nuts, which Akane swiftly moves out of reach.

“These are mine. Find your own heart-healthy snacks.”

 

 —

 

Akane does not run out the door of her house because she doesn’t want to be late. Akane runs so that Yuuka doesn’t send her a text about it. It still comes, although in a different form. _I’m waiting inside, say my name._

She replies cheekily with _Yuuka._ And then gets no response.

Akane doesn’t really know what to expect today. It’s 11:35 when she reaches the restaurant and finds her way to Yuuka’s table, guided by the hostess. Yuuka is not wearing a mask although they are only partially isolated from the larger dining space. The hostess nods to her, so Akane wonders if Yuuka is connected.

She sets her white baseball cap on the table and sheds her coat and scarf to the floor. “Have you been waiting long?”

“I got here early anyway,” Yuuka says. Her hands are folded, and the menu sits closed beside her, like she never touched it. “What do you want to eat?”

“What do you want to eat?” she parrots back. Akane is still trying to get herself settled, and Yuuka is just sitting there like a robot, almost. In those fancy old lady clothes, as Akane would call them.

“Well, it’s _your_ favorite restaurant,” Yuuka says, “but I already ordered plenty of vegetables. And sliced beef. And pork...” She goes on to list five other items on the tips of her fingers, and Akane watches. “Do you want to order fish?”

“You’re paying,” she says, dazed by the amount of food they’re going to get. But she does like fish with hotpot. “Are you that hungry?”

“I don’t really know!” Yuuka laughs, scratching her head. “I guess I ordered a lot, didn’t I?”

How bizarre. Yuuka’s awkwardness is usually tempered by the lack of cameras. Like this it feels like they’re being recorded, reverting to curated, fan-favorite personalities. Akane doesn’t like it. She has to get up.

“One second.” She calls their server over, to add white fish and the mushrooms that Yuuka somehow missed out on, and a few minutes later the first tray of vegetables arrives.

“So, Akanen.” Yuuka’s hands are clasped together while Akanen drops food into the hot broth. “Something just came to me that I want to talk about. And this isn’t why I asked you to eat out, just so you know.”

It’s a little suspicious how Yuuka voices that, kind of like as if it was rehearsed. “Okay! Sure,” Akane says, curious. Even though Yuuka says it’s not, maybe this will be her answer.

Akane sets down the tongs and makes eye contact with Yuuka. Then Yuuka gets nervous or something, and laughs. “Ah, wait.”

So Akane waits, while Yuuka tries to find her words. The rest of the greens fall into the soup, Akane having taken half of each portion from the platter. Leaves float to the top of the water within a minute, crowding the surface, and Yuuka hasn’t spoken again yet.

Finally, she says, “Do you remember, Akanen? When Fuuchan cried listening to us talk during our location shoot.”

“Yes...?” Akane remembers something like that happening. After all, it is Yuuka who pays attention to the details best, unless it happens to be a competition.

“So,” dragged out, as Yuuka takes more time to formulate her thoughts properly, “I felt like when we got that request, we were still kind of awkward, and didn’t know what to say. And we also spoke generically because it was on recording.”

“Um, yeah,” Akane says. Rolled beef lands into the soup with a series of splashes.

“But since Fuuchan was so touched, I started to think that it was worth thinking about after all. And discussing about. I couldn’t sleep that night.”

Akane is not sure where she is going with this. Yuuka is so bad at getting to the point.

“Basically, the whole captain-vice captain thing, but actually unrestricted.”

“Yes?” That’s not a sentence.

“I want that.”

Okay. Akane almost starts to nod, but Yuuka seems so uneasy that it reeks of bad acting.

“But the fact that you are asking for it means it’s not natural.” Akane suddenly looks up and around. “Is this a hidden camera segment?” She scrambles to her feet to investigate the room.

Yuuka frantically waves her hands. “No way! No, no, no, no, no.” Akane sits back on the floor. “I can’t believe you would say that. Is it that hard to believe that I wanted to talk about these things?”

Yuuka looks downcast. Wounded. Was she always this sensitive? Or is Akane just exceptionally imperceptive? Is that a silly question for Akane to be asking herself when she could be fixing... whatever this is? But she doesn’t know what to do.

“Actually, it’s not a big deal,” Yuuka says, head resting on her hands. “I guess I’m not so good at this.”

Sorry almost seems trite now.

“Keyakizaka is changing,” Akane says at last. “And I think we should change, for the better. And I think part of it has to start with us - the two of us.”

Yuuka makes eye contact again, but this time the roles are reversed. Yuuka looks with desperation, anticipation, with a need to rely on someone. And shouldn’t that be Akane?

“It’s not like I haven’t made any mistakes, after all, although maybe I’m not so honest about it sometimes,” Akane continues, looking at Yuuka, with the weight clearly hanging on her shoulders. Akane does her job as she thinks is right, that’s that - and Yuuka always tries to do better. For everyone else’s sake.

“You do great, Akanen.” Yuuka’s voice is almost a whisper.

“I could do better.”

Akane takes in a spoonful of bok choy and pumpkin at the same time. It’s bittersweet.

 

 —

 

The server brings Yuuka the bill, which she grabs as if Akane would take it away. The check holder slips out of her hands and lands somewhere on the table, luckily where there were no empty bowls, or half-filled sauce dishes of sesame and ponzu. As far as paying for other people, Yuuka seems experienced and yet new to it at the same time.

“Thanks,” Akane says customarily as Yuuka pulls a credit card from her wallet. “It was great.”

“I’m still surprised you didn’t just say yes. You would turn down free food?”

“Yes yesterday? I just-” and here Akane tries to learn from her mistake- “thought it was a little too good to be true. But I know better now,” she adds.

Yuuka laughs, satisfied. “Fine.” The waitstaff hands her the receipt to get signed. And Akane waits.

 

 

Yuuka puts on her coat, scarf, mittens, mask. Everything is slow and deliberate. Akane was done bundling up ages ago.

So Akane waits again. Yuuka likes closure, after all. So does Akane. And she still doesn’t know what she’s expecting. Yuuka is always a step ahead of her. And so unpredictable that Akane never knows how to prepare.

 

 

The bells on the door chime as they leave, and continue to bounce off each other until they fade into dull, rhythmic taps.

Outside under the gray winter sky they say goodbye. They have work the next day, it’s like nothing to part, or at least it should be.

“I know something now,” Yuuka says. “I learned something really important today.”

“What is it?” Akane asks expectantly.

“It’s that I never want to pull a hidden camera prank on you for the rest of my life. How terrifying would it be if you figured it out and I kept lying to you? Not only would you find me out immediately, I would definitely get punished.”

“I think you’ve gotten better at lying lately, Yukka.”

“Really? That’s a huge compliment.”

“Well, I’ve always been good at lying.” Akanen grins.

Yuuka pouts, but it disappears in an instant. Every reaction is faster now. Every change.

“Not to me, right?” Yuuka says it lightly. Maybe she is just as afraid to know the truth.

“Well.” But Akanen takes her arm. None of it is serious.

“Maybe,” Yuuka says, hesitantly - “you aren’t comfortable enough talking to me.”

“Or maybe I’m just bad at being honest.” Akane smiles weakly. “You’re honest enough for the two of us. It’s why we make a good team.”

Yuuka laughs. “If only it worked that way.”

After that she reads out loud a text that her driver is almost at the restaurant. It’s funny, and cute to see Yuuka try to mess with her phone with those bulky mittens on, only to pull them off and text back, and then hurriedly shoving her hands back into them, and then into her coat pockets. Why they chose to wait outside is the maybe the biggest question, but it feels like they’re stuck in the middle now - too short of a time to warrant walking back inside, too cold outside to feel comfortable at all.

Suddenly - “Akanen, I have to tell you something right now.”

“Say it.”

“I just think you should text back more.”

“...Is that all?”

Yuuka grins.

“Is that why you wanted to treat me to lunch?” Akane asks, in awe. Scary. The worse part is that it might have actually worked.

“You can tell yourself that,” Yuuka says.

Yuuka gets picked up by a car to go to a large family event. Someone’s birthday party, probably, or it could be an anniversary. Yuuka told Akane about this sometime during lunch, but she must have forgotten. Sensory overload.

Akane stands outside the door, not sure what to do next.

It feels kind of anticlimactic.

**Author's Note:**

> \- _delta:_ transition from safety to wild - I also like to think of it as the combining of individual streams to create something vast (like keyaki as a whole group) but i thought that was a little too much metaphor for one fic. 
> 
> \- i'm a relatively new keyaki fan so hopefully I captured them alright! [@haengseol](https://twitter.com/haengseol) \+ rps[@likewaterising](https://twitter.com/likewaterising)
> 
> \- thank you so much to sy, none of this would be here without you <3


End file.
